The Hero Yoshihiko and the Demon King’s Castle – 11-12 (fin)

And that’s a wrap on Yoshihiko S1! Witness the end of their journey in these two episodes, as our heroes make their way to the ellusive Demon King’s Castle to slay the Demon King once and for all.

Unfortunately, our Yoshihiko translator Kou is gonna be busy with more important stuff for a while, which means we won’t be able to start with Yoshihiko S2 right away. We’ll let you know once we’re ready to go again.

In the meantime, enjoy these two eps!

Episode 11 Notes

The Demon King’s Castle appears to serve as a thinly veiled social commentary on Tokyo and its many wiles – with Tokyo locations to boot, such as Odaiba, Shibuya and Shinjuku. Nothing says “budget saving” like filming on everyday locations! This could be inspired by the concept of Hargon’s Castle from DQ2 – the final boss’ lair that resembles a normal (and in this case modern) city. Also, from one of our IRC channel’s lurkers:

[16:10:42] <Uznare> oh well. at the start of dq6 the demon king murdaw sends the main character and his two companions into another world and they just start living there. which is sorta like what happens in this episode.

Yoshihiko’s boss parodies and mentions Takeda Tatsuya, a japanese actor well-known for the drama show “Kinpachi-sensei” (which is, incidentally, a show known for its social commentary and also a primetime youth drama!). The “You dummies!” line is a catchphrase of Kinpachi-sensei.

The spell learnt by Melub, Frizzoo (merachin) is based on the mera/frizz spell family.

As expected from the dandyman, Danjo ends up stuck in the world of kyabakura or hostess clubs, where men can find themselves in the company of pretty ladies to share a drink and a chat. The system he’s referring to is most likely the Dohan or paid dates, where hostesses meet up with clients outside the bar’s regular working hours, in order to generate attachment and repeat patronage. These paid dates sometimes do go from there, if you catch his drill.

A good way to save budget on extras is to use your own staff as extras. For example, the other patrons at the maid cafe are the assistant director and other two people; the filming staff in Murasaki’s scene is in fact The Hero Yoshihiko‘s own filming staff, playing and recording themselves. If you look around closely, you’ll spot Muro Tsuyoshi (Melub’s actor) and Fukuda Yuichi (writer and director of The Hero Yoshihiko) in the background.

The drama Murasaki is in is a reverse parody of “Jin”, a manga and tv drama about a brain surgeon from the present day who’s sent back in time to the Edo Period. Murasaki is most likely playing Saki, the heroine of that drama.

Episode 12 Notes

The spell that Murasaki learns is Kazing/Revive (zaoriku), a resurrection spell on DQ learned by characters at a high level.

Roto is indeed a very heroic name: Roto/Loto, aka Erdrick, is the name of the legendary hero from the original Dragon Quest trilogy. After asking around we went with Roto, which seems to be what most english-speaking DQ fans are familiar with.

Rotosuke seems to have the skill of commanding monsters, which is an actual class in DQ, Monster Master.

The Hero’s Sword in this episode is an actual lifesize replica of the Zenithian Sword from DQIV and V. It was lent to The Hero Yoshihiko staff by SquareEnix for this particular episode.

Kitaro’s father from GeGeGe no Kitaro is, quite literally, an eyeball; when Kitaro’s father died, all that was left was his eyeball, from which he was reborn.

Befitting of an evil final boss: the Demon King Galius is voiced by none other than Nakao Ryusei, voice of Freeza in Dragonball and Agent Abrera from Dekaranger, among other evil/twisted characters.

Ah, what a ride it’s been. I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this when the post for episode 1 showed up here, but it’s been so much fun!

Thank you all so much for subbing this show and for all the work you have done for us on all the other shows we love. Akibaranger, Gokaiger, Go-Busters and, of course, Yoshihiko, you continue to put out amazing subs for us and have become my favourite sub group.

Thanks so much once again. None of us would be able to enjoy such great shows if it wasn’t for you. I, for one, am very grateful.

Thank you Overtime for subbing this great show. I never even played the Dragon Quest games or any other RPGs for that matter so I skipped it, but after giving it a try I was hooked. Hilarious show, so much charm and fun. Can’t wait for season 2, and whatever else you guys decide to sub!

I literally just pulled a marathon and watched all 12 episodes. This show was freaking great. My only real gripe was that I think a lot of the Buddha humor was lost on me simply because I couldn’t stop looking that guy’s ganked up grill. I mean that grill is second only to Bouken Black in terms of “does Japan not have dentists?” Other than that I can’t wait for season 2 :).